Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Ok, so we are moving right along, another new fish tank, another 400lts and 6 more growbeds. Since the photo, they are all now full of medium and just waiting to be fitted out.
the water is clearing nicely, only a weak tea colour now, the fish are healthy and no loses.
I am really keen to see if i can try my hand at trout this season.
growth has been quite a suprise over the past 20 days, we are quite please with this little experiment.

Porter

Hi Porter,

Congratulatuions on your well organised and neat system!

I have also started about the same time as you, and one of my future expansion is may grow trays on two shelves. So I am examining the set up of the systems with many small grow beds (I call it grow tray).

I was curious about how you hooked up plumbing for large number of grow trays.
Q1] On the lower level, I see stand pipes, but I do not clearly see them in the upper level trays. Do they not have standpipe? May be.
Q2] On the upper level, the drain pipe is positioned a fairly high place, perhaps at 20cm height. Do this mean water is always filled up to this level? If there is a standpipe, is water drained at the bottom? Then, what is the role of the external vertical pipe that looks like a drain pipe?
Q3] You mentioned earlier that water input does not reach the last two trays. How was this resolved?

Sejin

PS
What fishes did you get?

Hi Sejin, nice to meet you,

The lower trays are not yet functioning, we are still buying piping and fittings.
But they will all run the same U-Siphon.
As shown in the photo.

I fitted the 100mm pipe cut in half to hold the gravel back and away from the siphon.
I also drilled some holes in it to allow water flow.
the siphons pull water from the top of the beds down, and siphons from the bottom out not from the top.
Its works brilliantly.
I hope the picture explains it better than me!

As for the water flow to the end two trays/beds, i have ball valves fitted to each tray, so i just backed off the flow rate in the closer beds and it easily reached the last two.

At the moment i have 60 large brown gold fish, but my confidence is growing that the system is functioning and very much looking forward to my first crop of edible fish.

Well its been quiet the past few weeks, heavy on the study and exams.

so a little update, the second fish tank came on line, and the top rail is now finished, one more bed to fill.
The colour of the water is thanks to seasol, otherwise it was coming clear nicely.

We are going to intergrate the second tank with some outdoor beds, and include the two IBC's volume into it, we can only expand from here.
With two IBC's, the 2 tanks and residual in the GB's we are sitting on 3000litres.
Small compared to some of you guys but good start i think.

two more..
The top pic shows the broccoli, a rescued pumpkin gone mad, our grape and the zucchini which is fruiting nicely.

Looks like it's all starting to kick along Porter...

Thanks Rup!

Nice looking system Porter, and did I see a pineapple plant in there?

Thanks very much Faye,
Yes it is! my wife scored a pineapple from the market still with its growth, and we thought, what the hell lets give it a go. It had some adjustment issues and the leaves reddened a little but its coming back with all new green leaves, so, will just keep an eye on it and hope for the best!

Kind Regards
Porter

Porter it Looks good..

A suggestion, I think you might have trouble down the track with your FT's.. from the walls bowing out..
Try to workout a bracing system so they don't bow out to far..

Other than that great work..

Juergen

Thanks very much Juergen, its a good point you make.
I will have to have some cages mage up i think, last thing i need is a tank giving out.

Regards
Porter

Very nice porter! Beware of the algea as already noted.

Off to work, have a good day!